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United States Central Command
United States Central Command (CENTCOM) is a theater-level unified combatant command unit of the U.S. armed forces, established in 1983 under the operational control of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. It was originally conceived of as the Rapid Deployment Forces. The CENTCOM theater of operations is the setting for the RDF Sourcebook and the King's Ransom module. Its area of responsibility is in the Middle East, including Egypt, and Central Asia. CENTCOM has been the main American presence in many military operations, including the Gulf War, the United States war in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. Forces from CENTCOM currently are deployed primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat roles and have bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan, and central Asia in support roles. CENTCOM forces have also been deployed in Jordan, and Saudi Arabia in the past, although no substantial forces are based in those countries Of the six American regional unified commands, CENTCOM is one of three regional unified commands whose headquarters are not within its area of operations. It is at MacDill AFB, in Tampa, Florida, although a forward headquarters has been established at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar to serve American strategic interests of the Iraq region. (The other such regional unified command is U.S. Southern Command, currently based in Miami, Florida.) Components No fighting units are directly subordinate to this command; rather, the five subordinate service component commands are: * U.S. Army Forces Central Command (ARCENT) * U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT) * U.S. Marine Forces Central Command (USMARCENT) * U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (USNAVCENT) * United States Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) There are major subordinate multiservice commands reporting to Central Command which are conducting operations in various areas: * Multi-National Force - Iraq, including Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq (MNSTC-I) * Combined Forces Command Afghanistan * unpublicised temporary task forces On October 1, 2008 Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa at Camp Le Monier in Djibouti was transfered to AFRICOM. During the Israeli incursion into Lebanon of 2006 a temporary task force, Joint Task Force Lebanon was also operational. CENTCOM staff sections include personnel, operations, logistics, and intelligence, as well as other functions. The intelligence section is known as JICCENT, or Joint Intelligence Center, Central Command, which serves as a Joint Intelligence Center for the co-ordination of intelligence. Israel, which is now surrounded by CENTCOM countries remains in EUCOM, "because it is more politically, militarily and culturally aligned with Europe," according to American military officials. Major US troop presence in the region dates to the 1990 Invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Operation Desert Shield, which transferred hundreds of thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia. Islamists objected to the presence of non-Muslim troops in Saudi Arabia, and their use in Operation Desert Storm and other attacks on Iraq became a key rallying cry for opposition movements in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. By the late 1990s, a gradual move to other countries was underway, particularly Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE. The military uses a variable number of base locations depending on its level of operations. With warfare ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003, the United States Air Force used 35 bases, while in 2006 it uses 14 today, including four in Iraq. There are already six US weapons pre-positioning sites in Israel, three of which are designated Sites 51, 53, and 54. Category:United States Military